Television viewers last Saturday witnessed violence committed by pan-blue demonstrators, who insanely attacked police officers maintaining order on Ketagalan Boulevard with slingshots and sticks and threw Molotov cocktails, fire extinguishers and rocks. Journalists documenting the event also fell victim to the crowd's brutality. Our law does not tolerate such barbarism. We urge judicial authorities to speed up their investigation so that the outlaws who commit-ted crimes that night can be put behind bars.
According to police accounts, dozens of citizens and law enforcement officers were injured that day, including a dozen photographers and reporters, some of them women. These brutal beatings startled television audiences. By yesterday, Taipei police had gathered concrete evidence showing that at least two protesters who encouraged other demonstrators to attack the police and journalists belong to organized crime groups.
In this light, we can see that some gangs had been waiting for an opportune moment to take action in order to benefit from the political turmoil. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (
In retrospect, the disorder in the wake of the presidential election can be traced back to the Taiwanese media. News organizations did not act according to professional ethics, but instead reported inflated opinion polls conducted with specific political motives. On election day, in their competition for ratings, many TV news programs reported fraudulent vote figures showing that the pan-blue camp led by a large margin. The reported results were completely inconsistent with those reported by the Central Election Commission (
In addition, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Taiwan upholds not only democracy but also the rule of law. Election conflicts among different parties are not something new for us, but have been occurring ever since the implementation of local autonomy. Therefore, if Lien and Soong are not satisfied with the election results, they should seek a solution through the judicial system. That's what opposition leaders should do, rather than repeating untrue accusations. Nor should they attempt to force President Chen Shui-bian's (
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS